5 Fun Facts about Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

2017 marks the 91st annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and we thought you would like to learn a few fun facts about this exciting event and how Life O’ The Party helps to make it such a memorable occasion each year! Here are 5 things you might be interested to find out:

1. 10,000 Life O’ The Party balloons are used – 10,000 latex balloons in red, yellow, blue, green, orange, and purple are custom-imprinted, inflated at our warehouse in Hackensack, NJ, and shipped out in 26’ box trucks for the Parade and related events throughout the month of November. That’s a lot of color!
2. A month’s worth of events come before the Parade – Watching the Parade on Thanksgiving Day, most people probably assume this vibrant celebration is a singular occasion, but it is actually the culmination of a month’s worth of events – including Clown U. (Where The Big Apple Circus prepares their clowns for Parade Day), Balloonfest (Where volunteers practice walking the large floats around parking lots at MetLife Stadium), and Inflation Day (The day before the parade, where we begin setting up and handing out inflated balloons by the Museum of Natural History).
3. We finish setting up for the Parade around 5am Thanksgiving Morning – What a busy couple of days! Inflation Day begins the day before the parade at 7am, and finishes up around noon for a private event with Macy’s. Then we resume setting up at 10pm that night by the starting line and down 5 blocks on Central Park West, and finish by about 4 or 5 am on Thanksgiving morning. We will have about 20 staff for the day – working hard as always!
4. Helium from the large floats is recycled – The parade has gotten a bit “greener” in recent years, with a push to reduce waste by reverse-inflating the large floats so that the gas inside them can be recycled. This is also done with a number of suppliers who recycle from MRI machines (one of the biggest users of helium in the world) where it is often sold back to folks like us as “balloon gas.”
5. Macy’s uses Life O’ The Party balloons year round, not just for the Parade – We are proud of our 15-year partnership with Macy’s. This includes not only the Parade and events in November, but also our year-round service for store openings, sales, and promotional events. We provide balloons and décor for all of Macy’s Backstage store openings – an eye-catching way to attract the attention of passersby.

Click the images below to see Inflation Day 2017 in detail – Everybody loves balloons!

And here are some videos from last year:

The scope of our work with Macy’s speaks to our dedication to trustworthy and scalable service. It is also our mission to bring this approach to every job we undertake – from events as big as the parade, to celebrations as personal as a wedding or bar mitzvah. Life O’ The Party is committed to helping you create a memorable occasion. Contact us to learn more.